The Property Council has provided its submission on the Environmental Offsets Regulation 2014 and Financial Settlement Offset Calculation Methodology.
In this submission, the Property Council has maintained the position that areas designated for urban development should not be subject to offsets requirements.
In addition the submission raises the numerous drafting errors and inconsistencies within the regulation.
The submission also highlights that the while the financial calculator will be a useful tool to assist project proponents in estimating the expected costs of a project upfront, the costs associated with it are prohibitive for urban development.
Critically, the calculator methodology states that koala habitat within South East Queensland (SEQ) are separate from other financial settlement calculations.
This will see any proponents in SEQ hit twice, as they provide for MSES and koala habitat as two separate offsets.
The submission is available at the PDF link below.